State-owned Tin Nghia Company was set up in 1989. After 20 years of construction and development, the company has been a large concern in Vietnam with a wide range of business scopes. The reporter of Vietnam Business Forum has given an exclusive talk with Mr. Quach Van Duc, President and CEO of Tin Nghia Company, on remarkable business activities as well as the message the company wants to send to foreign investors in general and Americans in particular.
Could you make a brief introduction of your company’s business and investment activities in the past years?
Founded in 1989, Tin Nghia Company has become one of largest business entities in Dong Nai province with eight member companies and 24 joint stock companies. With an annual revenue of over VND2,000 billion, the company was selected as one of 200 Vietnamese largest companies in 2007 by UNDP. The company is involved in a wide range of business spheres, including operating and developing industrial parks and real estate, processing and exporting agricultural products, trading construction materials, mining, trading petroleum, providing port, warehousing and logistics services, providing tourist and entertaining services, and performing financial investments.
The company has made significant breakthroughs in building and operating industrial parks. So far, it has invested nine industrial parks covering a combined area of 3,518 hectares and housing 142 Vietnamese and international investors who poured over US$5 billion in their projects. Tin Nghia Company is one of 10 largest coffee exporters in Vietnam and has won the “Exporter of the Year” in five consecutive years (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008). In petroleum trading, Tin Nghia is presently operating nearly 40 filling stations in Dong Nai province, which sell some 100 million litres a year. In logistics field, the firm, with a spacious warehousing system and good infrastructure, Tin Nghia Company is a best address for all importers and exporters. In construction material field, the firm focuses on manufacturing and trading granite stones, tunnel bricks, tezzarro bricks and ores. At present, the company continues with many new projects like Eastern Saigon Urban Zone in Nhon Trach district, Cu Lao Tan Van – Bien Hoa commercial, conferencing, residential and golf complex, Phu Huu oil depot, Quang Vinh commercial and residential complex, medical centres, Tuyen Lam Lake – Da Lat tourist site, and Xuan Loc bus station.
Human resource is a decisive factor for sustainable development. How does Tin Nghia Company care this matter?
Human resource development is the foundation for Tin Nghia to grow up. Thus, we always take deep and regular care of this issue. The company always offers positions and opportunities for excellent persons. Tin Nghia actively discovers, trains and assigns best positions for capable employees. Especially, Tin Nghia Company has a handsome budget for training employees. We are currently carrying out a variety of training programmes in Vietnam and other nations like the UK, France, the US, Ukraine, Singapore, Thailand and Switzerland. So far, the company has trained 721 employees, including 11 in Ukraine, 15 in Thailand, Singapore, France and the US. Overseas training mainly concentrates on business administration, finance, international business administration and foreign language. These are foundations to build up key personnel for the long-term development strategy of the company.
Amid complex economic contexts in Vietnam and in the world, does Tin Nghia encounter any difficulties and challenges?
After two years of entering the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Vietnamese economy is nearing the others in the region. The global economic recession started in 2008 has left considerable impacts on all aspects of real estate, stock, monetary, import and export markets of Vietnam. As a result, Tin Nghia also faces up with challenges in growth. However, with our 20 years of experience, this is not the first global crisis we have met. The crisis is a good opportunity for the company to restructure operating apparatus to be more effective and prepare for the post-crisis development.
Do you and your Tin Nghia Company as well have any message to foreign investors?
We warmly welcome and create all conditions favourable to foreign investors in Vietnam and operate in Tin Nghia’s industrial parks, residential areas and urban zones. Dong Nai province lies in southern key economic zone where the industrial growth is highest in Vietnam.
On August 16, 2009, we kicked off the construction on Eastern Saigon City with the most modern planning and architecture in Vietnam. The city is located in Nhon Trach district, east of Ho Chi Minh City, which is formerly known as Saigon. This will be a cultural, economic and urban centre lying in the middle of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), blue-print Long Thanh International Airport and coastal Vung Tau City. Cu Lao Pho Urban Zone in the heart of Bien Hoa City, the capital of Dong Nai province, is being built infrastructure. These are the largest urban zone development projects in Dong Nai, which are opening many investment opportunities for Vietnamese and international investors.
Vietnam is expected to have a population of 104 million people by 2020, of which 46 million people, or 45 %, are urban citizens. With annual increase of 1.56 million people, Vietnam will need 460,000 hectares of land, accounting for 1.4 % of the country’s natural area. In the 2009 -2015 period, Vietnam will build 148,000 apartments, an equivalent to 9,580,000 square metres of house floor area. With more than 41,000 hectares, Nhon Trach, which will become a city in the near future, will have one million residents by 2020, seven industrial parks, four ecological tourist sites and an international university complex. Eastern Saigon City will have seaports, river ports, Long Thanh International Airport and expressways linking with Ho Chi Minh City, Vung Tau and Long An.
Reported by Van Luong
Vietnamese
